Officially Kids Trained

Hello Everyone,
I’m still plugging away over here in Japan. It seems each day I become a little accustomed to Japan, although I am not sure I will ever fully understand it, right now I am watching a TV show about a chimpanzee and a bulldog. The chimp acts like the bulldogs owner and actually leads him around by leash (strange), but the cherry on top of the strangeness is that the show periodically cuts away to show the audience members crying. Maybe I am missing something due to the language barrier (I sure hope so). Anyway as promised here is a little update as to what I have been up to lately.

As I mentioned in my last post I am now officially “kids trained” this means I now have the skill set (supposedly) to teach groups of kids. First I will give you a gist of what NOVA kids is. At NOVA there are three levels of kids, and all is based on their age, most times it has nothing to do with abilities. There are Kinders (very young – pre 1st grade) Juniors (1st – 3rd) and Seniors (3rd+). Thus far I have only taught Juniors and Seniors. Kids can take lessons in two different ways – in a group (8 kids or smaller) and in a Man to Man (MxM) where it is the teacher and only one kid (I’ve got a story about this for later). The lesson plan runs for one month, the kids come in once a week, so there are four lessons in one unit (one unit = one month) Until today I had not done a group lesson, because it is so close to the end of the month and they wanted me to start with a fresh month, so I had been with the kids the whole time, but today we were short some teachers so I had to step in and do my first group kids lesson. MxM kid’s lessons are much the same as group lessons, but it is one and one, and cost the parents of the child a good chunk of money. So now that you have an idea of the options that kids have I can begin to tell you about some of my classes and other things.

As I mentioned earlier I had training on September 24. I didn’t care for kids training too much. I had to be in Kiryu by 10am, so I had to be at Isesaki station to catch a train by 9am. Then I had training from 10am-6pm. All training consisted of was a guy telling me (and 3 others) what we are supposed to do. No hands on training or anything, so needless to say after about 4 hours of being told what I am supposed to do my brain just sort of shut down, and I could see that all the other guys were struggling to pay attention as well. Needless to say kids training did not do me a whole lot of good, not to say it was not helpful, but it would have been nice to get some hands on training.

Tuesday I headed back to work with kids training under my belt. I worked a normal day on Tuesday, they didn’t want to give me any kid’s classes because it was so close to the end of the month, they just figured I would start at the beginning of Oct. which was fine with me, so Tuesday was quite uneventful.

I expected Wednesday to be the same way. Wednesday is my short day, I don’t go into work until 2:15pm and I am out of there by 6:30pm. When I got to work Wednesday my schedule looked pretty easy, but then out boss realized there were some problems with it, no one is supposed to teach the same student twice in one day, and that is exactly what the schedule had one it. The only change that worked was for me to pick up a MxM kids class, I thought this is the perfect way to get used to the kids type lessons, in a one on one environment with few distractions. My first few lessons went by just fine, then it was time for my first kids lesson, I was a bit nervous. I got all of my stuff ready (flash cards and other “props” to help the kids learn) and headed for the “cubicle” where I was to teach the young boy. When I rounded the corner I saw that he wasn’t there. I felt a moment of disappointment, immediately followed by relief. I hung around for a few minutes and then started to head back to the employee room. On my way back the doors from outside opened and in walked a mother and her child, this must have been the child I was to teach, so headed back to my cubicle.

The child entered the cubicle and I introduced myself and asked him to get out his workbook so I could take a quick look at his homework, this all went fine. Then I busted out the flashcards and started to go through them with him, he made it through about 3 of the 8 when he started to get really quiet, then silent. After a few seconds of silence he put his head down on the table and closed his eyes. I start thinking what I am supposed to do. I keep going on with the lesson, and he is just repeating every word I say without even lifting his head from the desk. His English is very limited and my Japanese even more so, I kept asking him to wakeup (in English) and he would simply repeat it back to me. After about 5 min of this he finally stopped responding altogether. He was completely asleep. I tired gently shaking, but he wouldn’t even move, he was gone, so I sat there in silence for the last 25 minutes of the lesson, strongly fighting the urge to pick him up and shake him. Finally the bells rang and I was free, so I got up and tired to wake the boy, but he wouldn’t budge, and his mother was nowhere to be found. I went and got a coworker and asked him what to do, he tired to wake him as well to no avail. I had another lesson with adults in that same room in about 9min, so our only solution was to drag his chair into a room that would be empty. Finally we found one of his friends and asked him to wake the boy, is friend came and punched him pretty hard and the kid finally woke up. He proceeded to stagger out of the NOVA building (looking like a drunk a little man) I had to do all I could to contain my laughter. So my first lesson with kids was quite interesting. Ever since I started at NOVA I was told that kids were the best part, at this point I was not so sure.
My fears of the kids would be eased soon. Today I had my first group kid’s class, even though it was the end of the month a few instructors were gone today so I had to teach their classes. The classes are pretty fun we get to play games and sing songs. I am still quite new at it, so I am sure that I am not doing it completely right, and am not sure exactly what I am supposed to be teaching these kids each week, or the exact steps that I am supposed to follow, so class is quite interesting. I post more about what the classes actually entail in a later post.

Well now all of you are up to speed on what kids’ training actually is (or at least the amount that I know). Hopefully my next post will contain some more crazy stories about these kids. The weather is starting to turn nice, today it was in the 60’s and not so humid (you all know how I hate humidity). I will try to post again soon. As of right now I have tentative plan to take a train to some mountains next Thursday or Friday, not exactly sure where to go, but I can ask my students, so hopefully I will have pictures to post next time.

Miss everyone back home, and am really wishing I could be watching some American Football right now.
Adam